You have permitted these inaccurate and negative postings to appear on the Website without seeking to verify the veracity of their contents.

Mr. Benjamin demands the usual suspects:

Consequently, on behalf of our client, we hereby demand that (1) you immediately remove the negative content posted by your member "txhog", together with all related threads and postings, from the Website, (2) thundersplace.org immediately cease and desist from any further derogatory postings of any kind about Dr. Elist, (3) you immediately provide us with the name and contact information of the user posting such disparaging comments, and (4) you post an announcement in a conspicuous place on the Website acknowledging that the defamatory statements have been removed due to your inability to verify their accuracy. Failure to comply with the foregoing demands will leave our client with no alternative but to take action and seek all legal remedies available to him.

Mr. Benjamin's letter on behalf of Dr. Elist bears several prominent signs of aggressive bogosity. First, the letter utterly fails to specify what statements of fact in the forum post are false. You know my mantra: vagueness in defamation threats is a hallmark of meritless thuggery.

Second, and even more importantly, Mr. Benjamin's bumptious threat ignores the law governing the situation. His premise — that the forum is obligated to police user comments and verify their accuracy — is absolutely wrong as a matter of law. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, thundersplace.org is absolutely not liable for defamation for things that its forum users write; its owners are only liable for things they write themselves. This is not a close call. Nor is it an obscure or difficult point of law; it is the single most relevant, obvious, and dispositive legal issue concerning Mr. Benjamin's threat.

As always, such a threat raises questions. Did Mr. Benjamin send a legal threat whilst completely ignorant of the law governing it? Or did he know the law and just hope that he could dishonestly bully someone who didn't? For that matter, did Mr. Benjamin advise his client Dr. Elist of the Streisand Effect — the principle of internet culture under which his threat (all the more so because of its transparently feckless nature) would naturally draw several orders of magnitude more eyes to the anonymous complaint on the forum? I wrote Mr. Benjamin to ask, but received no response.

Regrettably, our broken legal system allows litigants and lawyers to inflict massive expense, stress, and violations of rights upon people whether they act from ignorance or mere thuggery or both. California has a strong anti-SLAPP statute, and thundersplace.org stands an excellent chance of prevailing on an anti-SLAPP motion and recovering attorney fees if Dr. Elist and Mr. Benjamin proceed on their meritless theory. But thundersplace.org — which does not make its owners much money — can't afford to hire a California attorney.

Can you help? Can you look past the somewhat snigger-worthy circumstances and assist an American in vindicating their constitutional and statutory rights? Our system is broken, and our rights are therefore too often merely hypothetical. But every time someone like you stands up for someone who can't afford legal assistance, our rights become a little less hypothetical and a little more actual. Every time a lawyer agrees to stand up against a patently frivolous claim like this one, it becomes a little harder to bully people through feckless threats. Every time a lawyer steps in and a threatener slinks away, a few more threats are deterred. The robustness of our freedom doesn't just depend on the big cases, the Cohen v. California or Brandenburg v. Ohio. It depends upon lawyers willing to contribute a few hours to making rights a reality. Will you help? Please consider it.

Updated With Awesomeness: A response already! David Casey is a repeat signal-responder — a few years ago he was instrumental to the resolution of a bogus dental threat. Now David Casey and his partner Brian Lynch have stepped up to offer assistance to the forum targeted here. They deserve thanks. You may not be the target of this threat, but when lawyers like David and Brian work pro bono, they are defending everyone's rights. Thanks!

>>I think I deserve a substantial amount of credit for refraining from penis jokes, by the way.

Ken, as much as I enjoy this site and your writing, I could not disagree more. Missed opportunities are wasted opportunities. In a story like this, you really needed to rise to the occasion. If that's a problem, though, I'm sure 'Dr.' Elist might be able to help.

I think it's just awesome that his website offers a live chat with a "Male Enhancement Consultant." Unfortunately they seem reluctant to discuss this incident. I also suspect that encouraging people mentioning it to call the office to discuss it might not be the most prudent course of action

Mr. Benjamin sure is acting like a prick. Maybe he should stop dicking around with these off-cocked legal threats and act like a functioning member of society. I hope the courts give this tool the shaft, knock on wood.

As much as we all are quick to stand up for the hard task of thrusting puns or double-entendres into our posts here, it should be obvious that there is little challenge in such comments, however long they might be. It would be far more difficult, given the rigid nature of legal writing, to insert them into formal documents, especially when they're intended to come before a court. Perhaps our host can tell us: Is there a pre-existing system by which we might award points for the number and quality of such double-entendres used in such legal affairs?

Can the Doctor sue the attorney for causing greater harm to his rep than if he'd simply left it alone? It seems to me that Mr. Benjamin should have advised the doctor that there was no grounds for action to be taken.

"I think I deserve a substantial amount of credit for refraining from penis jokes, by the way."

Ken, we all know you are all about the strait and narrow. When somebody is getting the shaft, there is no need to droop down to the level of childish humor to get to the point. Just not the way to get a head.

Has there been any progress on that federal anti-SLAPP legislation (H.R. 2304)? It's great here that California has such a strong state one, and I too am fortunate enough to live in a state that has at least a basic anti-SLAPP law, but something even stronger would be better, and there's still the issue of someone who ends up in federal court based on federal law. The EFF seemed pretty positive on it last May when it was introduced, and I've seen various letters of support pop up since introduction, but otherwise I can't seem to find anything on its progress one way or another.

I know it's an election year and all, but going by the Public Participation Project's national map of states with their own laws on the books already it looks to me at least that this might be one of the rare cases where there is a pretty deep well of universal support across the spectrum. Any issue that can get everyone from strong red Utah/Oklahoma to strong blue Hawaii/Vermont on the same side, not to mention hugely powerful states like Texas and California, would seem like a stronger then normal chance to get something done. I guess to some extent no news is good news in that I haven't heard of it getting utterly neutered or anything either, but for the last 9 months when I see another unfortunate case like this I find myself checking to see if the federal ball has moved forward any. It'd be a nice positive story for the politicians to make some hay with sure, but it'd also be an honest good for the country.

Edited to add: here's the Congressional page for it for others interested. It seems to have been picking up a reasonably steady stream of cosponsors which seems like a good sign to me, but I don't know how to find out from there what the committee has done or discussed about it, if anything.

Dr.E practices in Beverly Hills, specializes in wee-wees*, Johnsons, Willies, tools, birds, poles, spears, making mighty swords, turning guns into rifles, turning cool Cadillacs into hot rods, etc. and has a huge web presence, all of it good (so I've seen in a quick perusal).

But I'm not good at digging up dirt on other folks, as my garden already runneth over.

Is he really a urological Mr. Clean, or what?
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* according to one site, there are at least 1500 other terms
. .. . .. —- ….

"Last April a user wrote a post describing a harrowing experience with surgical penis enhancement. How harrowing? I read it and I cringed so much my cringer broke. I am completely without cringe now."
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Can a Memory-Foam mattress be subpoenaed?

What if it's a "smart" Memory-Foam mattress?

In light of the FBI vs. Apple dust-up I think this is worth determining with some certainty…

Who else thinks Mr. Benjamin and Dr. Elist should both be blackballed?

@Paul

As much as we all are quick to stand up for the hard task of thrusting puns or double-entendres into our posts here, it should be obvious that there is little challenge in such comments, however long they might be. It would be far more difficult, given the rigid nature of legal writing, to insert them into formal documents, especially when they're intended to come before a court. Perhaps our host can tell us: Is there a pre-existing system by which we might award points for the number and quality of such double-entendres used in such legal affairs?

Mr. Benjamin sure is acting like a prick. Maybe he should stop dicking around with these off-cocked legal threats and act like a functioning member of society. I hope the courts give this tool the shaft, knock on wood.

According to the firm website, referenced above, it appears that Mr. Benjamin is an expert in real estate transactional law. As a result, people ought to lower their expectations of him when it comes to things which involve tort claim litigation.

There are rules in many states advising lawyers to avoid areas in which they are not competent, but he is in California, and my knowledge of that state is extremely limited. Before posting rules-based criticism, be sure to check the rules applicable in that state.